Here’s What Happened When I Tried Eating One Meal a Day for the First Time!

Well, I tried this diet myself.

I will be frank about my review. I usually eat 2–3 times daily with around 1–2 cups of coffee. I don’t consume hefty meals, but I still have my fair share of junk food because I am an international student (best excuse).

Over the last few years, I have gained considerable weight; I am not even kidding. I have gained over 20 kgs in these two years because of various factors, probably due to my stressful lifestyle.

Anyway, I tried to do several things to lose weight, but I could never find the motivation to stay consistent.

It is tough to wake up early, go to the gym, and then follow a diet. Because of my lack of determination, two years passed, and I hadn’t lost even an inch.

So, one day, I came across a podcast about the OMAD diet. Honestly, I am not a person who likes to follow diets, not because it is tough, but because the pressure of being on dieting makes me wanna eat more junk, lol!

In that podcast, everything about OMAD was explained in detail. OMAD means a more elevated version of intermittent fasting. In intermittent fasting, you have your eating window between 12 pm and 8 pm, so in OMAD, you have your eating period after 24 hours, and you eat just for a 1-hour window. Sounds tough!!

But hear me out!!

In that one-hour window, you can eat absolutely anything! Want to have Burger King? Sure, make your way to it. You can have that for sure. But it just has to be that one hour in that entire day. The purpose behind OMAD is that you have to consume all the calories in that one single hour. And let’s be honest- you would not reach your maintenance calorie target in that 1 hour. So, this diet would cause a calorie deficit of 500–1000 calories, which is a lot!

So, now, this was the easiest thing for me to do as I had to control my hunger and not put any extra effort into eating bland food, skipping my daily coffees, or burning extra calories in the gym. I decided to try this for a month. I decided to give it a try.

I will be honest: it was extremely tough, like legit tough, for me to control my hunger throughout the day because, in the past years, I was habitual of eating junk throughout the day. And this practice definitely required a lot of discipline.

I saw some videos on YouTube about OMAD, and everyone used to claim that with this diet, they don’t feel hungry and stuff, and in fact, they feel energized. Meanwhile, there was me, who was lying dead because of hunger on the first day!

But regardless, I decided to continue.

I used to have my food at around 5:30 after my job. My plate usually consisted of whatever I could have easily made, plus my coffee. Now, it’s more beneficial to plate your food in a balanced diet by considering the amount of protein, carbs, etc. But I used to be very tired after my job, so I used just immediately to have whatever I could on that day. To give an approximate idea, I used to have either chicken rice and coffee or an avocado egg sandwich plus coffee. And sometimes, I would have junk like two junior chicken sandwiches from MCD with Pepsi. It’s not a balanced diet, but I still tried to eat whatever I could in that window.

Then, I used to sleep at around 7–7:30 pm because, due to starvation, I used to get severe migraines.

So, it was difficult for me to follow this habit for approximately one week.

After that week, I kind of lost my consistency and sometimes had two meals — small ones, but still, the whole point of OMAD was to have food in one sitting.

But even after being a bit inconsistent in between and having junk as well, with 1–2 times visiting the gym, I lost 4.8 inches of my waist.

And I was shocked to see that I could achieve what I have been trying to do for the past two years with just one habit!

So, think about how much I could have lost if I had been consistent with it. And in weight, again like, this isn’t the best-desired result because I was not wholly successful in following ideal practices, but I still lost 7 kgs (15.43 lbs). Inst that amazing!!

Now, cut to one month later, my eating habits have changed. I never get hungry before 4 or 5 in the day. My eating portions have decreased a lot. I also can’t even imagine having three meals a day with snacks. So overall, OMAD was the best decision of my life because it completely changed my outlook on food. There are many other benefits of OMAD besides losing weight! I will share those soon with you guys!

I will post another article explaining some frequently asked questions about OMAD. Meanwhile, what do you think about this one meal a day practice?